STAR WARS TFA: More Han! More Chewie! More Racism!

NEW “STAR WARS: TFA” TRAILER PACKS ENOUGH PUNCH TO CRASH TICKET SITES AND FREAK OUT RACIST DARK SIDE

 

As it turns out, the newest trailer for STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS hews remarkably close to what appeared (and didn’t appear) in the poster art released Sunday. Indeed, it looks like the left hand knows what the right hand is doing at Disney/Lucasfilm marketing. That means shot after shot of eye-popping battle action, Stormtroopers up the ying yang, more Han, more Chewie, a “blink and you miss it” Leia reveal…and not so much as a glimpse of Luke. Let the conspiracy theories (and whining) begin!

 

Featured prominently throughout are Daisy Ridley (playing a scrappy scavenger named Rey) and John Boyega (as Finn, a Stormtrooper experiencing a crisis of conscience). Ridley shows she can handle a blaster with the best of them, continuing a long tradition of director JJ Abrams rightly favoring female characters who don’t need a man to complete them (or fight their battles). Rest in peace by that Lake on Naboo, Padme Amidala. We won’t miss you. For his part, Boyega is an exciting addition to the STAR WARS universe, here looking every bit the “next big thing” fans of ATTACK THE BLOCK knew he would be.

 

If you thought the racist bastard contingent was pissed when Boyega made a splash late last year in the first teaser, these addlebrained malcontents are positively apoplectic now. As @scottdylanworth correctly pointed out on Twitter, the haters think it’s great when a black actor plays a villain (and, as I noted, it’s even more speKKKtaKKKular when he’s off-screen, like James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader) but if they’re front-and-center in hero mode, it means the STAR WARS franchise has morphed into a stealth campaign for “white genocide.” I kid you not. Next step? A boycott, of course. It’s the latest lame social-media campaign to be conducted via hashtag. I refuse to re-print the actual #content here.

 

Fear not, fellow Padawans! This is our STAR WARS and we don’t take kindly to dark side dorks trying to suck the fun out of a flight on the Millennium Falcon. Despite stinking up trending topics on Twitter, the “don’t see STAR WARS because it stars a black guy” stunt is already an epic fail. Advance ticket sales launched immediately following the debut of the new trailer and created such a sensation, both MovieTickets.com and Comcast-owned Fandango crashed.

 

While they get their Bantha poodo together, check out the trailer. It’s pretty damn spectacular. If The Force so moves you, share your thoughts in the comments section below. Enjoy!

 

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS opens December 18, 2015 in North America.

How A Black Stormtrooper Woke Up the Dark Side

In the week since the release of the first teaser for STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS, the 88 second clip has been viewed more than 58 million times. That breaks the record for any trailer posted on YouTube in 2014. If you’ve been living under a rock somewhere on Tatooine and haven’t seen it (or want to watch it again) it’s included at the end of this post.

 

The original plan was to do this write-up day and date with the promo launch. That didn’t happen. Rather than joining everyone on the instant-reaction bandwagon, I chose to hang back. Why? Because the trailer opens with a shot of a BLACK GUY dressed in Stormtrooper armor. Now, if that doesn’t seem like a big deal, then you’re a typical STAR WARS fan. If, however, the mere sight of a BLACK GUY on screen is the thing you fixate on, you’re probably a racist bastard. I had a gut feeling the hate contingent was going to have something nasty to say so I hit pause and waited for the fallout. Sadly, I didn’t have to wait long.

 

Apparently, high levels of melanin cause a disturbance in whatever twisted version of The Force surrounds the ignorant and xenophobic. The target of their venom is actor John Boyega, best known for his breakout role in the indie hit ATTACK THE BLOCK. While the rest of us were buzzing about lightsabers, X-Wings and the Millennium Falcon, the idiot underbelly went online to vent and let their prejudice do the talking.

 

In addition to the usual insults, bigotry and red neck ramblings, some folks played the “I’m not racist, but…” shell game by deploying revisionist STAR WARS history. A Stormtrooper can’t be black, they declared, because all were cloned from Jango Fett. Except they weren’t. Jango was indeed the genetic source for the cannon fodder that populated the first Clone Army but by the time Stormtroopers were on the front lines, that was no longer the case. Never mind that we have no idea what role Boyega is playing because it hasn’t been officially announced. Sure, he might be a Stormtrooper or he could just be in disguise, you know, like Luke and Han in the 1977 original. Of course, it doesn’t matter which facts get mangled here. At the end of the day, these are still race-based attacks lurking behind some pretty flimsy window dressing.

 

To his credit, Boyega isn’t letting the haters get in the way of his happiness. Why the hell should he? He’s in a STAR WARS film and they’re not. His response to the nastiness was a brief “get used to it” tucked neatly into the footer of an otherwise cheerful and charming Instagram post. He couldn’t have handled the drama any better. What still upsets me is that he had to deal with this BS in the first place. 

 

I don’t accept that cruelty of this nature is a necessary evil or something that we should pretend isn’t a pox upon the whole of civilized society. Just because the victim happens to be black doesn’t make it a “black thing” that the rest of us can or should ignore. It is absolutely disgraceful and dead wrong that a talented young actor can’t celebrate a major career milestone without being slimed by blowback from bigots. If this is the kind of crap that surfaces in response to a casting decision in a sci-fi film, imagine the horrors people are dealing with in the real world where the stakes are much higher.

 

Be a good Jedi and do one thing the next time you’re about to ignore the hate speech in a social media post, sit silently while others laugh at a racist joke or pretend someone “doesn’t really mean it” when they use a racial slur: don’t act on that impulse. It’s a trap! Respond. Speak up. Engage. In these situations, your silence is not golden.

Ok, enough of the Dark Side. It’s time to fire up the Falcon! Scroll down to check out the trailer and read my take on the mother of all teasers.

You probably felt cheated if you were expecting a first trailer for STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS that was brimming with fan-favorite characters and major plot revelations. Sorry, that’s not what this 88 seconds is all about. It is, in every sense of the word, a teaser. On first pass, it plays like a random assortment of clips, strung together with little rhyme or reason. Watch a few more times and you start to see some method to the madness. Still, there are no familiar faces, no jaw dropping surprises or anything really big that we didn’t already know. With all that seemingly not going for it, here’s the shocker: the thing kinda kicks ass.

 

When George Lucas was dislodged from the process, the prospect of a really good STAR WARS movie suddenly seemed possible. Bringing JJ Abrams in kicked even the best expectations into overdrive. After all, he managed to re-boot the STAR TREK franchise with a movie that fans and non-fans loved then he topped that with an even better sequel. Putting Abrams in charge of re-birthing the STAR WARS universe was a dream come true. You’ll never have to worry about him casting the next Jake Lloyd, killing off the best new bad guy way too early or being the only one who thinks fans can’t get enough of long, horribly written scenes of chemistry-free romance by that lake on Naboo. Now that the first trailer is out, it’s also safe to assume that Abrams must be confident in his vision. There’s no other way to parse how he is able to do so much by choosing to show so little.

 

The trailer had to make it clear that there was a new sheriff in town; one who respects the material but isn’t afraid to toss out the  bantha poodoo. That’s what makes the opening shot so brilliant. Seeing Boyega in Stormtrooper armor (on what looks like Tatooine) gives us the old and the new in one bold stroke. It’s also a long overdue shift for the franchise. Other than Billy Dee Williams and Samuel L. Jackson, Lucas didn’t exactly embrace diversity when it came to casting most of the human roles.  Putting a fresh, exciting young actor front and center is smart. That he also happens to be black is a welcome break from the sins of the past. This isn’t your grand daddy’s STAR WARS and that’s a good thing.

 

 

The trailer might be stingy with narrative details but, the first minute is given over to a rapid-fire succession of clips that mercy kill all lingering memories of cute Ewoks, jabbering Jar Jar and those horrid squeals of delight from little Anakin. It’s shot after shot of tension, fear, looming conflict and lots of running and flying away from (or toward) something unseen but probably unpleasant. Even the one kinda cute droid is not having a good day. It’s a whole lot of angst that culminates with the one-two rush of X-Wings in flight over open water and the lightsaber to end all lightsabers. This thing looks like a weapon that’s built for killing. It’s down and dirty and makes Darth Maul’s double beam model look like a kiddie toy

 

Though it’s hard to make a sweeping assessment with so little to go on but, it does look like the George Lucas digital EFX freak show has been shuttered. Amen! This STAR WARS is gritty and organic, at once familiar but also more grown up and worldly. The Force might be waking up but the majority of the promo is all about The Dark Side. That is, until the grand finale. A near perfect crescendo that pairs the STAR WARS theme with a mind blowing shot of the Millennium Falcon soaring through dizzying aerial acrobatics while under attack by TIE Fighters. I haven’t smiled so big and wide in a long time. Yes, I’m a STAR WARS geek and, finally, I can be damn proud of it once again. December 2015 can’t get here fast enough.

 

 

 

CLIPPED/SE: NEW FALL SERIES [FOX]

IN TWEET: IT’S ANOTHER SPECIAL UPFRONTS EDITION OF “CLIPPED” FEATURING EXTENDED TRAILERS FOR NEW SERIES COMING THIS FALL. UP TODAY IS FOX.

This is one of the shakiest slates I’ve seen from FOX in awhile. There’s one buzzy re-imagining here that might generate some numbers (hint: it’s pictured above) and a surprisingly funny rip-off of…er…I mean, homage to STRIPES but the rest of the lot runs the gamut from utterly conventional to outright wretched.

Again, because networks will continue to tweak and refine their new offerings, I am not going to include much specific schedule information. Like the NBC post yesterday, this list includes only new Fall series. We’ll cover the FOX midseason newbies at a later date.

ALMOST HUMAN

ALMOST HUMAN looks like castoff bits of ROBOCOP, DOLLHOUSE and “insert name of mismatched partners cop show here” were thrown into a blender and then reconstituted by the JJ Abrams TV assembly line. It’s clear that Abrams’ attentions are more on the big screen of late and his television efforts have suffered because of it. FRINGE left me cold and REVOLUTION is lucky to be on NBC or it would have (and should have) been given a mercy killing.

I love Karl Urban and Lili Taylor but little else in this promo jumped out at me. Zero humor, zero chemistry between the leads and visuals that look almost SyFy cheap.

VERDICT: FOX has found its new TERRA NOVA. That’s not something to brag about.  NOTE: the trailer for ALMOST HUMAN was pulled from the official FOX YouTube channel on 5/15/13 because of a “copyright complaint” by the studio that produces the show for FOX. Yes, that’s bizarre but, trust me, you’re not missing much.

 

SLEEPY HOLLOW

SLEEPY HOLLOW picked up the clue phone that ALMOST HUMAN ignored. We’ve got another fantastical take on the mismatched buddy cop drama but this one is quite intriguing. Kudos, too, for a cop show with a non-white female in one of the two lead roles. Maybe FOX has a new Mulder and Scully (with a 2013 makeover)?

Ichabod Crane is no longer a gangly nebbish. Instead, he’s a hotsy Colonial who has the misfortune of being revived in present day Sleepy Hollow. Not only does he hold the key to saving humanity (as hotsy Colonials, recently revived from a 250 year slumber, so often do), some doofus also woke up the Headless Horseman. Not only does this make for a potentially raucous good versus evil battle across time, it’s the perfect excuse to jazz up an already great promo with a really good beheading.

VERDICT: A promising cast of relatively new faces, an A-list production pedigree and what looks like a beautifully produced hour that doesn’t take itself too seriously, this could emerge as a sleeper hit (my bad pun not withstanding) against unscripted fare on NBC and ABC . It should at least score some decent sampling.

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BROOKLYN NINE-NINE

BROOKLYN NINE-NINE has a lot going for it. It’s got folks from 30 ROCK and the criminally under-watched PARKS & RECREATION behind it. The talented ensemble cast features Andy Samberg, Andre Braugher, Terry Crews and Joe Lo Truglio, among others. It should be a slam dunk but the promo is dishwater dull and distressingly short on laughs (other than a few uncomfortable  pity chuckles). That doesn’t bode well for a comedy. My worry button is pressed pretty hard by the apparent lack of any on-screen sparks between Samberg and Braugher. 

VERDICT: Samberg has a following (me included) but I’m not sure they’ll stick with him if the humor he has aced in countless digital shorts doesn’t translate to a half=hour weekly. This promo runs under four minutes but it felt much longer. I kept fidgeting and waiting for that “oh yeah, this will be funny” payoff. It never came. Looks iffy, especially in a tough time slot with a weak lead-in (see next entry). I hope I’m wrong.

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DADS

Oh dear! Where to begin with this stinkeroo? DADS looks so bad, it makes the cancelled TV Land crap fest RETIRED AT 35 seem positively brilliant by comparison. It looks so bad, I’d rather sit through a SMALL WONDER marathon than an episode of DADS. It looks so bad, if DADS didn’t come from the Seth MacFarlane tree house, it would never have gone to pilot.

Seth Green, Martin Mull and Giovanni Ribisi (my favorite Scientologist who isn’t Kirstie Allie) all deserve better than this. I don’t dislike MacFarlane (he was the only good thing about the Oscars this year) but I’m not in his “OMG! He’s, like, wicked f-in funny all the time” fan club. Even if you are a fan, I defy you to watch this promo and tell me you are jazzed about adding DADS to your DVR playlist.  I’m not easily offended, but the scene with the Asian employee made me embarrassed for all parties concerned.

VERDICT: Barring any schedule shuffling, it’s a crappy show in a crappy timeslot. Reality fans have THE BIGGEST LOSER on NBC, oldies and the undemanding flock to NCIS on CBS and ABC is launching what could be the hottest show of the Fall season: MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. That leaves scraps for DADS. Only a miracle (and/or the need to kiss the ring of Seth MacFarlane) will save this.

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ENLISTED

Wait! A comedy that looks funny? How did that slip in here?

ENLISTED certainly owes a thing or two to STRIPES but that’s not a ding. This was the FOX pilot I was the least excited about but, the trailer took me totally by surprise. It has humor to spare and quite a bit of charm, to boot. ENLISTED looks just arch enough for the network but it is clearly swinging for a mass audience. Sure, the three brothers look NOTHING alike and there is the distinct possibility that all of the good gags are shown here. Still, I’d rather bet money on a comedy promo that makes you laugh than the two previous ones that don’t.

VERDICT: It’s marooned on Friday nights and has the aging RAISING HOPE as a lead in but, it’s the only comedy in the timeslot. Even if it does marginal numbers, ENLISTED could find its way to a full season pick-up and renewal by FOX. Big potential.

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